Allons-Y, Oswin!
by Jesuslovesmarina
Summary: Whoops! Rose Tyler has left the newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor alone, refusing to believe that he is, in fact, the same man! How will that change who he becomes, and who is the mysterious Clara Oswin Oswald of Osley (and everything-to-do-with-the-prefix-'Os') who keeps following him everywhere he goes?
1. Preface: Change

**A/N: Hello and welcome! Like many of my stories, I have a whole saga planned out for this, that will include Ten, Clara, Rose, Jack, Jenny, Donna, Strax, Torchwood 3, and tons of others, but we'll see how far I make it! Your support and reviews are always needed and welcomed. Thank you so much for reading this story, and shoot me a PM with any questions you may have!**

 **Disclaimer: I stink at disclaimers. Mine will all be boring. I don't own Doctor Who. There, happy? ;P**

 **~Marina**

Change

"Go on, then," the Doctor grinned openly at Rose, fully expecting her to roll with his unexpected change, "Tell me. What do I look like?"

Miss Tyler, however, was still partially hidden behind one of the Tardis' coral beams and watching the skinny man with crazy, long hair in her Doctor's jacket like he was a nutter off the streets.

Which, to be honest, he probably looked like, but she could still be a little more accepting, right?

"Who are you?" her voice wavered uncertainly.

He decided not to let it faze him, though he was a little surprised. "I'm the Doctor!" he reassured her, the smile dropping from his cheery-looking face.

"No—where is he?" Rose asked, still staring at him in wide-eyed shock. "Where's the Doctor? What have you _done_ to him?" she continued more forcefully, stepping out to face him.

He gave her a confused look. "You saw me; I changed! Right in front of you." _Had she closed her eyes or something?_

Rose lowered her eyes. "I saw him sort of—explode—and then, you replaced him, like some sort of teleport, or a transmat, or—a body swap, or something."

She approached him slowly, and sped up a few steps with a look of determination before reaching up and shoving him slightly backward.

His new muscles kicked into gear as he kept his balance and rocked back forward onto the balls of his feet again. Watching Rose carefully with a frown on his brand-new face, he wished she'd just get it and move on. They had so much to do! They were on their way to Barcelona, for crying out loud!

"You're not fooling me!" she exclaimed suddenly, with a little sniff. "I've seen all sorts of things. Nanogenes—Gelf," she paused for effect. "—Slitheen."

He raised his eyebrows, truly amazed that she could be this naïve.

"Are you a Slitheen?!" she suddenly exclaimed.

If she wasn't so serious, he could have laughed. A Slitheen would have never fit inside this lanky new body of his! "I'm—not—a Slitheen," he replied slowly.

"Send him back," Rose demanded, backing away from him again. "I'm warning you; send the Doctor back, right now!"

"Rose, it's me!" he protested gently, determined to convince her. "It's—honestly, it's me!" He stood up a little straighter. He fell taller, looking down at her now. Must be about six foot three. "I was dying," he explained more carefully. "To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but," he shrugged, "it's still _me_."

Rose started shaking her head. "But, you can't be!" she barely whispered.

He smiled slightly. "Then how can you remember this?" he stepped forward, taking her hand in his. She flinched, but he held on, squeezing it gently. "Very first word I ever said to you, trapped in that cellar. Surrounded by shop window dummies—oh, such a long time ago!" his eyes twinkled as he remembered. "I took your hand, I said one word. Just one word, I said— _run_!" He grinned again, waiting for her to see it.

"No," Rose whispered, and he felt both his hearts sink like lead. She dropped his hand. "No, you can't be him. I risked my life to save him—I—I—opened up the Tardis, and—I remember now! I became the Bad Wolf, and he kissed me! He—" she started sobbing, and he moved to put an arm around her, but she shoved it away. "He loved me!" she shouted at him. "The Doctor loved me, and he saved my life, and we were gonna be together—and now you're here and I don't know who you are, but I think you killed him!"

Each word felt like a stab in his newly-formed hearts, beating faster with the pulsing regeneration energy that surrounded them still. "Rose," he protested, feeling his own voice getting louder, "He did love you! I love you! I'm trying to do that, right now and you're making it ha—" he clamped his mouth shut, biting his lower lip. He'd been created for this girl; he had to keep trying. He could NOT mess this up, or it would be over—over as soon as it had begun.

"Rose," he coaxed, more gently this time, "Come with me. I can show you what the Doctor's like now. I can show you—where he is." he pointed toward his own chest, trying. Trying to show her.

Tears were still flowing freshly down her cheeks. "You're a liar," she sobbed, hurting him even more. "You're nothing but a liar and a mad—sick—messed up guy!" Rose ended, yelling.

His mouth twitched. _"She doesn't mean that,"_ he thought to himself. _"If she really believed I wasn't the Doctor, she'd come with me to find out where he was. She'd be threatening me right about now, not crying and shouting."  
_ All the same, though, she was next to the door. He watched her, his mouth in a round 'o'. It was hard to believe she was actually doing this. Didn't she know what wonderful things they could do together?

"Take me back," she shouted at him, tearfully. When he hesitated, she shouted at him again. "Take me back, right now! Take me back to my Mum! I don't want to do this anymore!"

Hastily, he found his now-shaking hands on the Tardis controls, resetting their course from Barcelona to Earth, 2005. He gulped in a breath, bravely still attempting to talk with her, to convince her otherwise. "Right then. Powell Estate, December 24, 2005, London, Earth, Sol System. There was something significant about that date—now what was it?" he scratched his head, trying to remember.

Suddenly he snapped his attention back to the present. "We're on our way," he reassured her, standing up and folding his arms over his chest with a frown. "Now are you sure you don't want to stay?"

"We'd better not land in Cardiff!" was all she managed to yell back, sniffling.

He instantly took offense at the barb, both toward his ship and his driving abilities. "We're not going to land in Cardiff!" he exclaimed, making a face. "We'll land in Jackie's living room, if that's what makes you happy! It sure takes a lot to make you happy, doesn't it?" His anger was building, and for some reason, his mind wasn't working right to control it. It was as if a part of his brain had suddenly shut down, and he started to feel a burning sensation at the back of his throat, as if some of the regeneration energy hadn't been expended properly. Not only that, he actually sounded pretty normal, like his old self that had died two minutes ago.

"All I want is MY Doctor back!" Rose shouted back.

"Oh, come on!" he snarled, slapping the Tardis console, for which she sent him a mental smack. "All I did was change! It's not like I just—GAHRGH!" he choked, his knees suddenly going weak under him.

Rose raised her eyebrows, a frightened look in her eyes.

Angrily, he tried again. "I said, I didn't—BARGH!" his hearts were beating faster, faster than they were ever supposed to. He put a steadying hand on the console as heat rose into his face, and he suddenly, weakly, exhaled a thin cloud of glowing, yellow energy.

"Who are you!" Rose shouted, a terrified look on her face.

"I just changed!" he shouted at her. "I just changed, a teeny, tiny bit, and now it's going all wr—GAGH!" he gagged, bending over at the waist as his body convulsed forcefully, trying to expel the rest of the regeneration energy.

Suddenly he shot up. "Christmas Eve!" he grinned, as if nothing had happened. "I knew we were landing on a good day!"

"Wait, where's Captain Jack?" Rose suddenly demanded, hand on the door handle. "Where is he? We should go back and get him! Why did you leave him there?"

"Captain Jack?" he panted, almost in a whining tone. "I nearly died, you're going home, and you're wondering about Captain Jack? Do you know how far away we are from him right—ARGFH!" he convulsed again, then gasped for breath as he grabbed for the Tardis console. He knew he should stay away from it—the energy was affecting his mind—but— "I think I'll use this one; yes!" he muttered to himself, flipping a new switch from under the dash.

The Tardis rumbled and jerked suddenly under them, causing them both to stumble over whatever was close by.

"Don't you dare touch anything!" Rose cried. "We'll never get home if you do something stupid!"

The Doctor laughed maniacally; he was seemingly unable to control his own actions. To him, Rose's concern suddenly seemed hilarious! "Just putting on a bit of speed! That's it!"

In fact, he nearly forgot that she was even in the room, and flipped another switch, pushing buttons and dials that he hadn't used in centuries (and there were plenty of good reasons why, which he'd forgotten all of a sudden). "My beeeautiful ship! Come on, faster—attagirl!" he growled in pain, gripping the side of the console where the coral grew up the sides. "Whatta you think? Faster? Wanna break the time limit?"

He was muttering just to the Tardis now, but his body was so bursting with energy that he couldn't even hear her inside his mind anymore. It was just a mad conversation with himself, as he wildly danced around the console, his extra-long arms and legs flopping around like a teenage boy's.

"Stop it!" Rose shouted at him, her voice growing angrier by the second. " _Stop it_! You're going to kill everyone! The Tardis, me, you; all three of us are gonna die when you _crash_ this thing who-knows-where!"

"Oh, come on!" he growled back, "let's have a bit of fun for once! We're gonna rip through that Vortex! Hot Dawg!" he gasped in pain, then suddenly looked up at the Tardis columns with a look of apology in his eyes. "I'm sorry," he managed to say to her, not to Rose. "I'm sorry—regeneration's gone wrong again and I –ah, my head!"

He bent over again, then suddenly yanked his body upright again, the crazed look having returned. "FASTER! Let's open those engines! Yes! Woohoo!" An alarm bell started ringing in the distance as he continued to laugh maniacally.

Rose wished with all her might that she knew how to fly the Tardis, and berated herself for the second time that day for never having learned. Now she was stuck in the beautiful, old ship with a crazed madman in the Doctor's black leather coat, they were crashing and probably about to die, and she didn't have a clue as to how she could stop him!

She screamed as they hit another bump, knocking both of them to the floor.

Just then, everything went silent except for the Tardis.

The ship was heaving; great, groaning sounds as if she were breathing hard after a long run. But for now, they were apparently safe.

Rose picked herself up, gasping for breath, and reached for the door handle with a hand shaking so badly she could barely open it. She was so scared that she jumped up and ran outside as fast as she could, without even looking to see where they were landed.

Miraculously, they were actually back in the alley outside the Powell Estate. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and nearly collapsed into her mother, Jackie's, arms as the older woman came running up to meet her with Mickey alongside.

"Mum," she whispered in a weak voice, "Mum, you have no idea what this day's been like!"

"Oh, Rose!" Jackie cried, petting her hair softly and rubbing her back with her other hand, "I was so afraid you wouldn't come back! What's happened to you?"

Suddenly, the Doctor appeared at the door of the Tardis, gazing open-mouthed at the atmosphere of the planet, and propping himself against the doorframe with both hands.

Rose turned around and narrowed her eyes at him.

The Doctor's eyes wandered around for a few moments before he finally caught sight of her. "So you—" he stopped for a moment, swallowing as he tried to remember all that had taken place, "You are—not—coming with me, then? I kind of want to go to a nicer place—somewhere with more beaches, and maybe a bit of archery; some Zelths with needle-noses—" his gaze wavered for a moment as he rambled, then settled back on her. "No?"

Rose looked at him blankly for a second, than shook herself. "No," she answered firmly, laying a hand on her mum's shoulder.

He exhaled through his cheeks, making a bubble with his mouth and blowing it out. "Okay, then," he answered, sounding indifferent, "I'll be gone in a tic."

He stepped back inside and closed the door.

Silence sort of fell on the little group outside the time ship, as Rose collected her thoughts and Jackie and Mickey tried to think of something to say.

"Who's he, then?" they both asked at the same time, then looked at each other awkwardly.

Rose sighed, shakily. " _He's_ what happened to me today," she tried to explain it, even to herself.

"So where's the Doctor?" Mickey asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He's—" Rose tried, "He's—"

She realized she really didn't know where the Doctor was. He'd said he was going to change, but she'd already established that the man in the Tardis couldn't possibly be the Doctor, or at least not HER Doctor, could he?

"He's not—" she tried again, "gone."

"What do you mean 'he's not gone'?" Jackie demanded anxiously.

Behind them, the Tardis groaned once in preparation for takeoff.

"He's in the—oh, my gosh, it's really him!" her eyes suddenly flew open in realization.

Wind blew leaves and trash around them and started to whip at her and Jackie's hair as the Tardis continued to dematerialize, suddenly fading from sight.

Rose gasped, seeing it. "Oh, no, no no! I changed my mind! I didn't know!"

She ran toward the ship, throwing off her mother's desperate grip and ignoring Mickey's protests, covering the few yards as fast as she could go.

"WAIT! Waaaaiitt!" she screamed desperately at the fading ship, hitting the side without any effect. She stumbled onto the pavement face-first as it disappeared, leaving no trace, and the last of the piercing echoes of its departure left her ears.

Gasping, she felt the dirty ground beneath her, tearing her sweatpants and barely saving her face from a big, nasty scrape. She regretted it all now. How could she have been so stupid? The Doctor—that Doctor—was hers and she had let him run off with a new body and a mental state that could end up causing his own death, for the second time in one day. Hot tears started rolling out her eyes, down her nose, and onto the pavement and it took both her mother and Mickey to pull her back up off the ground.

Jackie pulled her into her arms, and she could sense her indignation at the situation, but Rose felt no more anger.

Only pain.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, wishing he could hear her. "I'm so, so sorry, Doctor, I'm so sorry!"


	2. The Arrival of Oswin in the TARDIS

**A/N: This is technically chapter 1, and the last one was the preface. Buckle up for a wild adventure, folks! And poor Ten…D':**

Oswin

The Doctor was sort-of-flying the ship, but he was much busier trying to breathe.

It seemed like he couldn't get enough air. He'd forgotten what had happened; how he'd regenerated, how he'd ended up flying at torrential speeds through Earth's orbit in a somewhat uncivilized time zone. He had a vague recollection of the pink-and-yellow girl he'd just dropped back at her home, and if asked he might've been able to identify himself as 'the Doctor', but the pain was so blinding he really couldn't think about anything else.

The Tardis hit a 'bump!' and he fell to his knees, still panting and gasping for the breath that didn't fill his lungs like it should've. Grasping the console, he hauled himself back up to his feet, really not caring about his condition but rather his present thirst for speed.

"Get on with it," he rasped at the Tardis, not even remembering who she really was. "Speed it up. That's a girl. Come on, rip a hole in the space-time continuum! That's the way to do it! Faster! _Faster!_ "

And she did go faster, her warning sirens blaring from all corners of the ship, but she was rocketing around Earth, orbiting once every three seconds.

" _I wasn't meant to go in circles,"_ the Tardis groaned to herself, nevertheless obeying the Doctor's command. He was hitting random buttons now, desperate to speed her up.

Still gasping. He saw black spots, with no idea why. Strange, the black spots. He'd have to look into—

"Speed _UP!_ "

" _Okay, okay, okay…"_

One orbit every second. Every half second. Every quarter second…

The Doctor slammed his fist on the console.

" _Okay, that does it."_ the Tardis hmph!-ed.

The engines choked and they hurtled through the air, the Tardis still steering them around the Earth so they wouldn't crash into the moon or anything, but she was only able to pull them up a few hundred thousand feet before they began to plummet. They hadn't quite escaped the Earth's gravity.

The Doctor bent over and grabbed his knees, hyperventilating by this point, but his face deadly pale nonetheless. Another waft of energy fell from his mouth and he wavered unsteadily, then got jerked abruptly off his feet as the Tardis began to initiate a crash landing sequence on her own.

They bumped about several times, the Doctor being literally thrown from one side of the console room to the other, and finally began their rapid descent toward Earth with the Doctor unconscious behind the jumpseat, limbs sprawled in every direction.

The Tardis screamed now that she was totally without a pilot, and they crashed with an enormous "BOOM!".

…

"I love my job," Clara Oswin rehearsed to herself as she walked up the street to the preschool where she worked. "I love my job—it's—it's lovely—to teach spoiled rotten preschoolers about shapes, and colors, and numbers—and how to share their toys," she winced as she thought about the incident yesterday.

Pierce, one of the bigger four-year-olds in her care (and insanely cute, at that), had started stockpiling blocks, trucks, and anything else he saw that he wanted, and started screaming and hitting the other kids when they tried to take them back. She'd tried putting him in a time-out, which didn't work, mainly because he didn't _want_ to be in one and kept running off. Clara had been all set to give him a good, solid smack on the behind—when his parents showed up.

Needless to say, her supervisor had NOT been pleased with the report the parents gave him.

Clara dreaded facing the parents again today; if they hadn't switched Pierce to another preschool. "I can't do this anymore!" she ranted, gesturing wildly to the frigid air around her. Several passersby gave her strange looks, and she felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment when she realized she'd spoken aloud.

But when they were gone, she still mumbled under her breath. "I can't control the kids if they're the ones in charge." It wasn't the way _she'd_ been raised.

Some Christmas Eve, going to a work party. Er, work-ing a party at work, more like. Who wanted to sit at work and play with kids whose parents had gone shopping on Christmas Eve?

She hadn't come to America for this, but she'd run out of money for the university she'd attended for two semesters. There had been some scholarship confusion, and now she was stuck here, wondering if she should go back to London or stretch out for the long haul.

In her musing, she hadn't heard the clanking noise in the air behind her, growing louder each second.

Suddenly, people around her started screaming and random chunks of wood and metal parts started ' _ping!_ '-ing on the concrete, like steampunk rain, all around her.

She whirled around in shock, to see that a blue wooden crate-thing was hurtling through the air over her head, whistling through the air. She watched it, gasping as it flipped and spun and dipped lower, nicking the pavement several hundred meters ahead of her and finally rolling over and over on its side past automobiles and lampposts until, with a sickening 'crunch!' it came to a stop over the destroyed pavement.

People all around started running and screaming and calling 911. Amazed and insatiably curious, Clara looped the strap of her book bag over her shoulder and started pelting toward it before police or anyone would come along to stop her. Cars and trucks had skidded to a stop and both drivers and pedestrians like her were clambering toward the crate, eager to see what it was.

Miraculously, it had actually landed right-side-up—or what looked like right-side-up; there were letters at the top that spelled out "POLICE TELEPHONE BOX". It looked like something out of a museum. She ran faster, reaching the door before anyone else could.

Smoke was leaking through and also pouring off the sides, as if it was some sort of crashed vehicle, but Clara knew that wasn't possible. Anyone inside could never have survived that crash, either; but she just had to see.

Slowly, she pulled on the door handle, but it didn't budge. She glared at it for a second, before realizing it must open the other way, and gently pushed. A tiny crack was visible, and she could faintly make out a light, but she had to give it a good shove before the damaged wood finally opened wide with a groan.

Stepping aside as a cloud of smoke came billowing through the doorway, she coughed and waved it aside as several other curious bystanders surrounded the box. "Wait, Miss, I'll go in first," a man's voice came from behind her. Narrowing her eyes, she could just make out some shadows and a yellow light, and was that—a human hand poking out from behind the debris!

Shocked that a person had actually been inside, she ignored the man's offer and ran inside, clearing away several strangely-shaped smaller boxes and tossing them on the floor, which was made of an odd grating. Hardly pausing to notice what a strange-looking place it was, she knelt down and grabbed the hand, attempting to feel the pulse like she'd learned in CPR class before going to work at the preschool.

She gazed down to see that it belonged to a tall, skinny, brown-haired man, dressed in a too-big leather jacket and black jeans, covered in dirt, and who had a jagged cut down the side of his forehead but was bleeding rather slowly for the size of the wound.

BANG!

The sound came from behind her, and she spun around to look. The door had slammed shut, seemingly on its own! Clara gasped, stood up from where the man still lay unconscious (or dead) on the floor, and ran over to it, pulling on the inside handle with all her might.

People outside were shouting things like, "It's locked her in!" "Call the police!" "It's those dratted aliens again, I'm telling you!" They were pounding on the door, but even with their combined effort, the wood was suddenly much more solid than it had seemed.

"Help! Help, me get out!" Clara screamed, starting to panic. She took a deep, frightened breath. She was stuck.

Breathing hard, she whirled back around to face the interior of the box—and felt her mouth fall open in shock. "No, way," she breathed, taking in the massiveness of the room. There was no possible explanation for this—a box that was bigger on the inside than on the outside? It was so huge and—

"I'd love to own one of these," she half-whispered to herself, thinking of how amazing it would be. It couldn't actually be real—no, not really. But—

Suddenly feeling giddy, she jumped up and ran her hands along the edges of the walls, over the door (which still wouldn't open), over the big, roundy thing in the middle of the room, along the curved pillars, on the muddy floors. It was just too amazing to be true!

With a wide smile of astonishment, she spun around in circles, looking it all over. It was—it couldn't be, but it was—it was real!

Suddenly she heard a groan, and gasped when she remembered the poor man she'd accidentally left, without even knowing if he was alive or not. She ran back to the boxes and crawled over them a second time, glad it was a work day and she'd worn trousers. The skinny man groaned in his sleep, his head moving slightly to one side.

Clara breathed a sigh of relief. So he was alive!

"Although," she addressed him, hands on her hips even though she knew he couldn't hear her, "you're just as unreal as this crazy box you got stuck in, if you're alive after a crash like that one."

A smile played on her lips. In a moment, the police would arrive, break open the door, and they could get him to a hospital. Maybe, after he was recovered, he could tell her about this box and how it did such impossible things as being bigger on the inside. "But for now," she said aloud again, "I suppose I'll just try and keep you company, seein' as we're both stuck in here."

She pulled up one of the boxes and sat down beside him, watching his face with interest. It was fairly dark in the room. The light changed from yellow to bright greens and blues as it emanated from the round thing in the center, which was behind them, and she could just make out the sharp features that jutted out from his pale skin.

He had long sideburns, and dark, longish hair that stuck up from all directions even though he was lying on the ground. As she watched, the cut on his forehead bled more and more slowly, until she wondered if it would be best to just clean it up now. The shouting outside had died down, and the only noise was a steady hum coming from the center thing.

A long moment passed, and she took out a few tissues from her bag, reaching out to wipe the blood from his head. Strangely, it seemed light-colored for normal blood, almost orange. She wondered if that indicated some kind of condition, maybe explaining why he bled so little.

Carefully, so as not to hurt him, she dabbed at the area around the cut, but for some reason she couldn't figure out where exactly the wound was. Knotting up her forehead, she pressed a little harder, and finally cleaned up the last of it, leaving nothing behind but smooth, undamaged skin.

"Oi, mate," she mumbled in confusion, "You've gotta be injured somewhere, if you aren't hurt there! Nobody heals that fast," she added under her breath.

Shrugging off the feeling of awkwardness that came with poking around on a strange person, she started to examine his face and neck more closely, even feeling the back of his head for injuries, but strangely, she found none.

Suddenly, a piercing, wailing siren filled her ears and she stood up in surprise, seeing that the big, green pipe jutting up from the center piece of the box was moving up and down, almost as if it were pumping something. Up, and down, up, and back down again. "Wha—" she started.

The ground underneath her feet jerked violently, throwing her to the grating. "Ow!" she cried, rubbing her aching hip where it had broken her fall. "What's it doing? Oh, come on!" she called to the man beside her, "Wake up and tell me what it's doing! I'm trapped in here and I don't want to be carried off and crash again who-knows-where!"

The ground continued to shake, as in an earthquake simulator, and now worried that they would be flying through the air and crashing again, this time causing _her_ demise, Clara shot back up to her feet and ran for the door, pulling on the door handle and shouting for someone outside. "Let me out!" she screeched, "This thing is mad! It's a vehicle, yes, and it's totally mad! I'm not even supposed to be here—I'm from London! Get me out, anybody?"

There was silence from the outside.

"Anybody still out there?!" she panicked.

Without warning, the noise stopped, and as she yanked on the handle one last time, it flew open and she found herself nearly thrown out of the door into a black, starry pit of nothing. She gasped and barely managed to keep herself from falling by a one-handed grip on the doorframe. Breathing hard, she pulled herself back in and clutched the frame in two hands, trying to still her rapidly-beating heart and take in the sight before her.

It was—well in one word, it was beautiful.

Outer space.

She was in space.

The view from a space shuttle—one she'd never dreamed she'd get to see. And as the box slowly rotated—unbelievably, it really was still just a small blue box, as she could see the outside now when she craned her neck— the planet Earth came into view, little by little.

The sight just took her breath away.

She could see America, and the little green patch where Missouri lay in its mass. She could see home, too—across the Atlantic, jutting out proudly where it always had. The only time Clara had ever seen the two countries, side by side, was on a map. Now they were in front of her, both of them, at the same time and she could see the clouds and mountains and valleys that covered them.

Earth itself all glowed with reflected sunlight, and the clouds were wispy bits of white down below her, continents and oceans she'd only seen from maps were spread out before her, like she was the Queen of it all. "Oh, this can't be real!" she exclaimed fervently, with unsuppressed longing in her voice. "It would be so amazin' if it was, though!"

"Would it, now?" a voice said beside her.

She jumped nearly three feet in fright and put a hand on her chest as she saw that the man had come awake, gotten up, and was now standing right beside her. "Oh," she smiled nervously, "Uhm, hi. I'm Clara. I found you in here when you—um—crashed in the street." She was gradually aware that he was extremely good-looking, aside from the extreme paleness of his skin and those hideous clothes. She smiled in spite of herself. They actually made him look like a little kid, dressed up in his dad's suit, but she kept that thought in her own head without saying it.

"I'm the Doctor; well, I think I am," he replied, gazing out at the celestial view with her, rather than meeting her inquisitive face directly. "I'm not really quite sure how all that happened. I think I must've gotten lost in the Time Vortex, which is funny 'cause I never get lost, and I think I lost someone…" he paused in his short ramble, knitting his brows in concentration as he continued to stare down at the Earth.

"Well," Clara bit her lip, feeling a bit awkward, "I'm sure that's all normal, you know—getting hit on the head like you were when this thing crashed."

He wrinkled his pointed nose. "I dunno. No, I don't think this is normal. This isn't normal at all," he kept on, the look of concern on his face growing, and Clara started wondering if he was completely sane. "This is unusual—in fact, this is very, very bad, Clara—this is—this is—argh!" he slapped his forehead. "And I can't even remember what this is!" He was facing her now, trying to explain something.

Feeling compassion for him, she tentatively reached out and took his shoulders in her hands. "Hey, it's all right," she soothed. "Why don't we sit down right here, and you can get your bearings again, eh?"

He nodded and complied, and she sat down next to them, both dangling their legs out of the doorway into space. "That was one heck of a nasty landing you had back there," she prodded gently. "Does this thing always fly, do you know?"

He seemed to be staring off at nothing for a second, then abruptly snapped back into hearing what she was saying. "Oh, it flies all the time. Never stops. Do you like her?" he asked, with a grin as if he was showing it off.

"What, the box?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes, the box!" he replied, sounding hurt. "She's beautiful my box—er, ship. My lovely ship—and she's all mine, d'ya know that?" he grinned again, getting up and running over to the center-thingy. He ran his hands gently over the buttons and levers, brushing off dust and pulling debris off of some of the stranger-looking knobs.

Clara got up, too, but not to admire the ship. She suddenly had a very frightening feeling. "Wait," she exclaimed, turning pale, "you mean—that's really _space_ out there?"

"Well, what other kind of space is there?" he snorted, still busy.

"We're thousands of miles above the Earth and this is a box that's actually a spaceship?!" she practically shrieked.

The man poked his head out from behind the center column, giving her a strange look. "Do I know you from somewhere?" he asked abruptly.

"Are. We. In. Space?" she demanded again, wanting a real answer.

"Yes of course, but I know you from somewhere!" he shouted excitedly, stepping back from the center and pointing at her happily.

"Oh, now, I know you really are mental," she sing-songed to herself, suddenly very uncomfortable.

"I know—you! Clara! Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara," he continued to ramble, "I know you from—oh yes! I know! I met you a long time ago, on Gallifrey! Or at least, I think it was Gallifrey," he muttered to himself, before grinning again. "But you were there! You were the one who told me to take this one as my Tardis! You were _right there_! Ha-ha!" he clapped delightedly, as she edged closer to the door, keenly aware of the ten-thousand-mile drop that awaited her outside.

Then he stopped, thinking hard. "Or was that Rose? That—that might've been Rose. Yes, that most definitely was this girl called Rose. You see, she was with me, and—Ohhhh!"

He acted as if he'd just hit a lightbulb, and Clara cocked her head to the side in an inquisitive manner.

"You're Rose!"

Her jaw dropped.

"Oh, Yes! That is brilliant! Fan—fan—f-fff—oh, that word doesn't work anymore, wrong teeth; never mind. Wonderful! You're Rose!" he started laughing as if he'd stumbled upon some hilarious discovery. "You are Rose, and she—she is Clara! Ha!"

Clara was quite at a loss of what to say. _"How do you deal with a person who's mental? Or rather, how do you keep them under control?!"_

"Or—you regenerated! Did Rose regenerate? Is she you now? I think she got killed by the Daleks, poor Rose. Poor old Rose. I'm in love with her, you know," he smiled a bit dreamily. "And now, you're her!" he started toward her and Clara instinctively started walking backward very quickly.

" _Uh-oh."_ she thought. "Oh, mmm. Nu-uh. No, no, no, no, no, I'm not her, um, whoever-you-are. The Doctor, right? Well, I'm starting to think very strongly that you might actually need a doctor yourself— this person, you're talking about her, and she's not me."

"She's not?" he stopped two feet from her, still smiling widely.

"No," Clara felt her voice squeak just a tiny bit. "No, she's—she's a long way from here—" inadvertently she glanced down at the shining form of the Earth, far below. "She's not—no. I'm a different, sort of stay-away-from-me sort of person. As in, back off. Shoo." She waved her hands at him nervously and was relieved when he started walking backwards, away from her, still grinning with his tongue poking between his teeth and shaking his head, his arms folded over the too-big leather jacket.

He stopped for a moment, standing by the console. Clara tensed, waiting for him to do something. "I think you're Rose," he said suddenly, making up his mind.

"Eee!" Clara squealed as he headed toward her again. "Honestly, I'm not! I'm telling you, I'm not! I didn't ask for this. I didn't walk in here to end up in a flying box in outer space and get molested by a creeper in a box—I really didn't— stay away from me, please!"

He took one step too close, and before she even knew what she was doing, she had swung a fist toward his well-defined, narrow jaw and he collapsed to the floor.

Clara froze, looking down at the once-again unconscious man in front of her.

"Well," she nervously remarked, "I didn't know I was that good!"

She looked back up at the round control panel in the center of the room.

"Crap," she suddenly realized, "I just knocked out my pilot!"


	3. The Christmas Invasion--of the Titanic?

**A/N: Back at last *cringes* I'm a lousy updater. Always have been. But here's another chapter, and hopefully more to follow!**

 **Thanks to the amazing person who Beta-d this: 'Black'VictorCachat. Go read his stuff! It's awesome!**

Chapter 2

The Christmas Invasion—of the _Titanic_?

The center of the box-ship-thing started making that same noise again, that same alarming, wheezing, siren noise it had made the last time. Clara had knelt down to examine the Doctor's head and make sure she hadn't done too much damage.

She bit her lip and looked up at the console when it started. "Hopefully that means it's taking us back. Can I count on that and not some strange alien moon or something?"

The ship didn't respond, but simply continued to make the noise and started to rock about again like last time. Below her (very cold) hand, the Doctor groaned and moved his head slightly, suddenly breathing out a cloud of golden vapor.

Clara's eyes went wide when she saw it and she scooted way back, to avoid getting any of it on her. For all she knew, it could be some kind of toxic gas. It had finally dissipated into the air when a blaring horn, so loud that it practically shook the whole room again, bellowed in her ears.

Out of nowhere, there was a huge "CRASH!" and before Clara's astonished eyes, a huge shape tore through the walls of the metal room, sending chunks of debris flying everywhere. Instinctively, she dove to the floor to keep her head protected from falling bits of wood and metal, but when the pelting stopped, she coughed for breath in the dusty air.

"If I didn't know better I'd think we're being attacked," Clara muttered to herself. She couldn't even make out what the thing was, but it had completely destroyed the outer shell of the box.

Air whistled over her head as it was sucked into space. Bells started ringing in her ears from above, confusing her even more.

Coughing and brushing the dust off her aching body, she scrambled through the wreckage of the now two crashes the ship had gone through and grabbed for a small, round object that had fallen from the thing they'd hit.

"Wha!" she squeaked when she read the letters printed on the side. _"Titanic?!"_ She carefully picked herself up, completely unaware that broken hoses were spraying gas all over her. Frankly, she was too disoriented to care if it was harmful or not. This day had already been too crazy.

Shaking her head in disbelief, she looked again to the round life preserver in her hand to the figure of a ship's bow jutting in through the hull of their own, very different type of vessel. "I think," she moaned to herself, continuing to shake her head as her curls came loose from the ponytail she'd tied them in, "I think I just fell down a rabbit hole!"

"Ahoy there!" came a voice from outside, close to the _Titanic_ , "Looks like we've found ourselves a bit of fancy space junk!"

Clara got her breath just enough to bellow out a reply, though why she did or who she was replying to she honestly had no idea. "Yeah, well," she shouted back, swallowing to get the dust out of her throat, "This 'space junk' has a voice, so if you could get down here and help us out before we suffocate, that would be much appreciated!"

"Is that a little missy?" the voice answered in amusement, clearly surprised that the 'space junk' had an inhabitant.

"One who's gonna get really cross if you call her that again!" she shouted back, trying to keep the tremor out of her throat.

"Ah, very well. Are you humanoid?" came the reply.

"Humanoid!?" Clara exclaimed. "What's that supposed to mean? What else am I, a chimpanzee?"

"A what?" there was a deep laugh. "Don'na worry, Miss, I'm bringing you the life preserver."

She raised an eyebrow and held up the ring she still carried in her hand, looking from it to the blackness of space just visible through the cracks.

With a sigh, she dropped it and turned back to the Doctor, hands on her hips. "What am I gonna do with you?" she asked the unconscious man, who was sprawled ungracefully on the littered floor. "Spaceships that are bigger on the inside are one thing. The _Titanic_ in space is another. Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse…"

Shoulders slumped, she took a seat on the floor beside him.

"If you could speak to me right now," she smiled slightly, running a finger along the edge of his face. "And you were sane, of course—what would you tell me this all means, eh?"

She looked out through the crack, where the hull of the giant ship still loomed ominously above their heads. It felt as though they were being pushed along by it; as if it was still in motion and hadn't stopped upon collision.

Though why it should, when on the outside it was nothing more than a little blue box, Clara didn't know.

"Am I dreamin'?" she kept on talking, because the sound of her own voice—somebody's voice—made things seem more tolerable. "Am I mad? Oh, there's a good one, maybe I'm madder than you are! Maybe I'm the mad one, and you're just as confused about me as I am of you! Or maybe—" she paused just slightly, the smile dropping from her face, "Maybe this is all real. And I'm never gonna get home, or see my family again." She sniffed once, though her eyes were dry. Truth be told, she was a bit excited to see what would happen next.

"Right then, Clara, how depressing can you get?" she scolded herself, standing up just as there was a sharp sound of someone knocking on metal. "Who's there?" she frowned, turning toward the hole.

"Your rescue team!" the same man who'd spoken before said cheerfully, only this time from just outside. "Now, I'm sure you must have another way in, Missy-miss, but I'm not _saying_ that I can't find it…"

"Oh, right!" she jumped up and ran to the door. "Wait. Isn't that outer space out there? I can't just open the door—I'll get sucked out."

"Well, it's your ship," the voice replied. "Shouldn't it have an atmospheric shielding?"

Clara thought back to when she'd opened the door earlier and almost gotten thrown out into space. She'd been fine. The air had been a little cold, but no more than one would expect. "Oh, yea," she gave a weak laugh. "Forgot about that—atmospheric shielding. Collision anxiety and all. Oh, and it's not my ship, in case he stole it or something," she added the last part, more to herself.

Holding her breath, she jerked open the door. The beautiful scene outside was now littered with glittering space junk, but was still beautiful enough to make her sigh involuntarily. Just like last time, although there seemed to be nothing between her and the endless vacuum, she could still breathe normally. "Door's open!" she called up.

She screamed when a large, brown creature covered in scales, with big white tusks and scaly clothing, suddenly dropped into the doorframe. "Rescue's arrived for the Missy!" he exclaimed, grinning with a wide array of sharp-looking teeth. His expression instantly changed to a frown. "What? Did someone put a human mask on my uniform again?"

Clara gasped, backing quickly to the console and leaning against it, eyes wide as she looked him over. "What—what are you?" she managed. If it was a dream, he had to be a cross between Pumbaa and the Queen of Hearts, but neither quite fit the extremely alive little hog-person standing before her.

"Uh," said the very confused creature, still standing in the door, "Are you asking…how I survive the exposure of space? Because that's the _usual_ reaction I get when I meet people outside…"

"Look," she apologized, almost in tears, "I don't know if this makes any sense or not, but I'm a human—I'm just a human girl from planet Earth, right over there—and I don't know what's happened to me today, but I'm pretty sure it's not something that normally happens to humans, and I don't have the slightest idea who you are!"

His large, tooth-filled jaw dropped. "You're a—human?" he said slowly, almost in wonder. "You—you are! Look at the clothes! Too sloppy to be less than genuine!" he took a step into the ship and Clara immediately took another step back. "You're one of the children Professor Copper always talks about! Well, I never thought little old me would ever get to see one!" he added with a large grin of delight that showed all his teeth.

"Professor what?" she replied breathlessly.

"Ha, ha!" he laughed a great, belly laugh, showing even more teeth. "You're a native!" he exclaimed in delighted tones. "A real Earth-child. A human, didn't you say?"

"Y—yes," she stuttered cautiously.

"And—oh, what about that poor man over there?" he gestured to the Doctor, noticing him for the first time. "Your husband, I'm assuming?"

Her cheeks flushed. "Oh, no. No, no, no. He's—honestly, I have no idea who he is. Or what's wrong with him for that matter. I don't think—" awkwardly, she took a good long stare at the brown creature before saying, "I'm—honestly not even sure if _he's_ human, either."

"Oh, probably not, else you couldn't have gotten out here," the creature said offhandedly. "But don't worry, Missy, we'll find what's wrong with him. Here!" he triumphantly held up a large, plastic-looking thing that appeared to be shrunken. "Little Earth-Missy's transportation into Paradise. You've heard of plastic, have you?"

"Uh, yeah," she replied, upon finding her voice. "My earrings are made of plastic."

He gave her a look of pure astonishment. "What are earrings?" he asked, apparently fascinated.

Clara felt awkward. A space alien, twice as advanced as she was, no doubt, since he actually knew about her kind when she'd never heard the faintest hint of his, and he didn't know what earrings were? She fiddled with them on both sides, pulling off the little plastic-beaded red jewelry. "They're like this," she replied, holding them out for him to see.

He came closer, eyes asking her permission first, as though he were approaching some ancient treasure. She bit her lip and nodded, determined not to let her fear get the best of her.

"Well, now," he shook his head in amazement, examining the beads, "That is just beautiful, I'll say! I've never seen such things before! They look a little funny in your ears, though…it makes you look a little like a March-roadent."

"A wha-?"

He stepped back, snorting through his long nose. "A March-roadent," he repeated casually. "They have things like—well, I guess you know what seaweed is? Coming out their ears. You look a little like that."

Clara wrinkled her nose at the idea. "Right then," she groaned, "I look like a March-roadent. And you look like a warthog. I guess I won't wear these anymore!" She promptly pocketed the earrings as the creature laughed and turned to tap a few buttons on the plastic thing. It looked like an inflatable—something.

Amazingly, as soon as he finished messing with it, it started to expand, like he'd turned on the vacuum pump for an airbed. Clara raised her eyebrows as the object started to take on a rounded cube shape, with an entrance latch on one side and several small gadgets attached to the outside. It looked like a toy, like a play house for the kids at her school, and most definitely NOT a lifeboat.

"Before I get in that—thing," she addressed the creature, "Would you mind telling me your name?"

He turned around and grinned at her through those teeth—those teeth. They really did look like a warthog's. "Grumple," he answered in his rumbling voice. "That's my name. I service the _Titanic_ , since my species can survive in open space under any amount of pressure. And what's yours, Little Miss?"

"Not 'little Miss'!" she exclaimed hotly. "I'm Clara. Clara Oswin."

"Pleasure to rescue you, Clara Oswin," he grinned back, bowing at the waist.

"Pleasure to escape with you. Now, can we get a move on, or are we just going to stand here chatting while the air runs out?"

"And now, if you would just step into the hold, I'm sure I can carry your mysterious friend inside as well, and you'll be all set to head back to the _Titanic_ ," the warthog continued, as though she hadn't snapped at him at all.

A small look of concern crossed her face. "But what if I'm not from the _Titanic_?"

Grumple shook his head dismissively. "Then you'll be teleported down to the surface like usual. We have guests that do it all the time, to explore the planet Earth," he added, noting her surprised look.

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised," she muttered to herself, clambering into the plastic lifeboat. "Aliens, space travel, a box that's bigger on the inside? Why shouldn't there be teleports?"

Grumple only laughed, and moments later, he was instructing her to help him move the Doctor inside. Clara was growing increasingly concerned about the unconscious man. He still hadn't moved at all, and she actually checked his pulse again to make sure he was still alive. It was unnaturally fast, she noted. Nearly, well, twice the pace of a normal human's.

"Now," Grumple spoke from the outside, "I'm about to lower you into space. Don't worry, Miss Clara, the pressure lack won't harm you inside there. Just don't get out until I come for you, because then we'll be inside the airlock. I'll be right behind you as we do our little spacewalk. And if he wakes up, just keep him calm and tell him he's inside a life preserver."

"How can this flimsy thing protect us from space?" she was worried.

"Oh, you just try and rip into it, Missy!" he laughed. "My own tusks couldn't puncture it, or they would've long ago. Here we go!"

"That was sure a comfort," she called out sarcastically as he sealed them in, and proceeded to drag them through the doorway, over the edge—

And out into zero gravity!

Clara held her breath and froze in place as the ground dropped out from beneath her, barely holding back a tiny scream. When they didn't fall, but floated, and her hair started moving upward and waving around in strands in front of her face, she finally released the air she was holding back in her lungs.

She was flying! Flying through space! Well, technically she was still in the lifeboat and couldn't see anything beyond the bright yellow, plastic walls, but it didn't matter. They were free of gravity and floating around, with nothing to hold them down!

Unable to believe her own senses, she laughed with joy as she rolled over in the air, letting go of the Doctor's hand, which she just realized she'd been holding onto as tight as she could manage.

" _Enjoy it, Clara,"_ she told herself. _"It's only for a few minutes. Enjoy it while it lasts!"_

She forgot that she was dreaming, and did somersaults and dives in the tiny enclosure, playing with her hair and making spit bubbles like a child, then laughing as they floated away like tiny beads.

All too soon, she heard creaking noises and the clatter of metal doors as they were dragged into someplace that had artificial light, for there was a lot of it shining through in places through the plastic. Clara braced herself for the inevitable fall, but fortunately, they were close to the ground and only fell a few inches before hitting the hard ground.

Grumple opened the life preserver and helped her out.

"Well, that wasn't as bad as I expected!" she exclaimed brightly, stepping out into the gigantic alien ship.

…

Clara didn't really want to leave the Doctor, especially after the ship's medical staff informed her that they weren't really sure what species of alien he was (although, to her dismay, he really wasn't a human after all), neither were they sure exactly what was wrong with him.

She gave them as many details about the accident as she could (slightly modifying the part about her knocking him out again, of course) and they left to make some medical deductions amongst themselves.

It was a bit strange having a green doctor, covered in spines, prodding at both her and the unconscious Doctor, remarking over and over again at how 'exciting it was to get an up-close examination of a real human!', and a little awkward, as well.

It seemed that on board, she was an instant celebrity. They'd gotten quickly whisked away from her new friend Grumple, who she'd grown rather fond of in such a short time, and were now in a totally different part of the ship, one with large, expansive, and comfortable rooms lining the enormous and richly-decorated hallways. It was the living quarters for—believe it or not—second-class guests.

Clara found herself surrounded with admirers and alien technology, and, well—aliens! There were fat aliens and thin aliens, blue and orange and red and purple aliens, aliens with spots, aliens with missing facial features, aliens that somewhat resembled humans and aliens that resembled dark blobs of facial hair, enough aliens that she was about ready to write the next Dr. Seuss book.

It quite took her breath away, and she couldn't quite manage to communicate that she and the Doctor were NOT married, and had only just met, so could they please have separate rooms?

But when the richly-dressed alien ladies finally shushed each other from pestering her with questions, about anything from the Queen and those 'quaint little shoes' to horses and 'gracious, how could such a darling be from a species that eats its own kind?' and 'surely she must be one of the Turkeys—the poor thing, we've rescued her!'

When they finally excused themselves to take part in other festivities, Clara found that the room itself (big enough to be a house, probably) was large enough to be quite comfortable for the two of them.

She had no idea where to begin looking for a place to sit down, since there were so many beds and chairs and cushions and comfy-looking places she honestly couldn't make up her mind.

"This isn't so bad," she said aloud, plopping down on a huge, down-covered cushion that supported her weight, just enough to make it comfortable for sleeping on. "All things considered, I'm on an alien spaceship, and I haven't panicked yet!"

She reached up and grabbed a large knit throw with the most complicated pattern on it she'd ever seen, snuggling up in it to get nice and warm. Lazily, she let a hand fall over the edge of the cushion, as she looked back across the room to where the Doctor still lay, pale and quiet, draped over a king-sized bed and propped up with pillows that fit to his head.

She sighed. She would feel so bad if she had hurt him permanently—then again, she probably wouldn't do anything differently. Her request for separate rooms had not been met, but theirs was large enough she didn't have as much of a problem with it as she'd expected.

If only she knew how to get home, this adventure would become so much nicer.

Perhaps even the adventure of a lifetime.


End file.
